"The major outcome of the conference was the finalization, after 13 to 14 years of negotiations, ... of the liability annex" to the existing Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, said Tony Press, the Australian chairman of the Committee for Environmental Protection.

About 300 experts, including representatives from 45 governments attended the meeting, the 28th conference on the Antarctica Treaty.

The delegates agreed late Tuesday on the annex that will hold companies and nations financially responsible for "environmental emergencies" in Antarctica, which covers 14 million square kilometers (5.4 million square miles) and where 90 percent of the planet's ice is to be found.

According to the new annex, an operator that is found to have created an environmental crisis in the region will be required to take immediate action to rectify the situation.

If it fails to do so, it will still need to bear the cost of any action taken by others, or pay the equivalent of the clean-up cost into an environmental protection fund.

A 1959 treaty signed by 12 states recognized Antarctica's role in the global climate and laid down that it was in the interest of mankind that the white continent continue to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and should not become the theater or object of international conflict.

In addition to the liability annex delegates at the conference discussed concerns about growing tourism to the area.

"This year, there are about 30,000 tourists in the region... There is no direct evidence of tourism having any impact, but there are concerns," Press told AFP, adding that the tourism issue also gives rise to worries about the "introduction of non-native species" to the pristine Antarctic environment.

"We have to ensure that organisms and disease are not introduced," he said.

The impact of global warming on the region was also on the agenda, after experts recently warned that climate change is causing some 200 glaciers along the coasts to melt.

"Especially in the Antarctic peninsula area, the impacts of warming over the past 50 years are quite obvious," Press said, adding that sea surface temperatures had risen and that glaciers and ice sheets were melting. The Antarctic Peninsula is a long strip of territory that stretches up towards the southern tip of Latin America.

Possibly as a result of the increasing temperatures as well as of illegal fishing, there have also been some changes in species numbers in the region.

"Some penguin species are growing in number... and due to illegal fishing there is a species of albatross that is endangered," Press said.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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